Pride Comes Before the Fall
Proverbs 16:18-19- "Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. Better it is to be of a humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud."
Hedonism is in fact a reality in life. People want to seek pleasure and the whole issue can also be liked to pride. How can that be? Pride in itself is like a narcotic which harms the mind both physically and spiritually. Some theologians may want to compare it to alcohol, shabu, marijuana or any of these foul substances the unsaved would like to take to avoid the wooing of the Holy Ghost. Likewise pride does the same to the very individual to appeals to it to escape from their insecurities in life. People can be boastful while they have even the slightest amount of money, fame, fortune or even which they do not possess but they think they do. It's the evil of the heart that causes one to flaunt over what they have or to boast what they have and they do not. The refuse to accept their limitations and continue to climb the ladder higher than they should.
Consider the example of Ahab. Ahab's pride was because he was a powerful king in the Northern Kingdom and he was allied with the Phoenician kingdom through his wicked wife Jezebel who helped him meet his needs. 1 Kings 17-22 accounted the tragic life of a proud and wicked king who was NO BELIEVER no doubt about that. It was his pride that caused him to kill Naboth aside from his selfishness. It was his pride that caused him to disobey the warning from God which Elijah but a humble prophet told him would happen. Another would be the example of Haman in Esther. He thought that he was so special. However Mordecai who refused to bow down as it was simply and totally wrong for anybody of God to do so. His pride caused him to first want to kill the Jewish people, then he was humiliated when he was forced to lead Mordecai in honor (and he would have not been humiliated in doing so only if he were humble), and that it led to his very death in the gallows which he gloated thinking Mordecai would be the one to die. Instead, he was hanged in the place of Mordecia. These are but two examples and the same can happen to people today. Yesterday they were the bullies, today they become the bullied. Talk about how God really avenges based on eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth system which is about divine justice.
A Christian is also cautioned to warn against pride. Although Christians may not be sinning all they please, however the issue of pride still lingers because the old nature still lives on and the road of the daily process of perfection is never an easy one. Think about Peter the first pastor of the Church. Peter thought that he in himself would not deny Jesus but Jesus warned in all four Gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John that he would deny his Lord three times and he did. When Jesus stared at him, he realized that he had suffered from so great a pride which lead him to repentance. Christians are required to be low of spirit because after all, their salvation and their good works are but the grace of God (Ephesians 2:8-10, Titus 2:11-15). Some Christians today as faithful as they are, however have fallen under one moment of a huge sin like how David in 2 Samuel 11 fell into adultery with Bathsheba herself because he was overconfident in his victories. God wants to keep the Christian humble to remind them that without God, they are nobody and that the righteousness they have that resulted to a changed life is not their own.